TY - JOUR
T1 - The relationship among CPU utilization, temperature, and thermal power for waste heat utilization
AU - Haywood, Anna M.
AU - Sherbeck, Jon
AU - Phelan, Patrick
AU - Varsamopoulos, Georgios
AU - Gupta, Sandeep
N1 - Funding Information:
The author appreciatively acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation through award 0855277 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/5/1
Y1 - 2015/5/1
N2 - This work addresses significant datacenter issues of growth in numbers of computer servers and subsequent electricity expenditure by proposing, analyzing and testing a unique idea of recycling the highest quality waste heat generated by datacenter servers. The aim was to provide a renewable and sustainable energy source for use in cooling the datacenter. The work incorporates novel approaches in waste heat usage, graphing CPU temperature, power and utilization simultaneously, and a mineral oil experimental design and implementation. The work presented investigates and illustrates the quantity and quality of heat that can be captured from a variably tasked liquid-cooled microprocessor on a datacenter server blade. It undertakes a radical approach using mineral oil. The trials examine the feasibility of using the thermal energy from a CPU to drive a cooling process. Results indicate that 123 servers encapsulated in mineral oil can power a 10-ton chiller with a design point of 50.2 kWth. Compared with water-cooling experiments, the mineral oil experiment mitigated the temperature drop between the heat source and discharge line by up to 81%. In addition, due to this reduction in temperature drop, the heat quality in the oil discharge line was up to 12.3 °C higher on average than for water-cooled experiments. Furthermore, mineral oil cooling holds the potential to eliminate the 50% cooling expenditure which initially motivated this project.
AB - This work addresses significant datacenter issues of growth in numbers of computer servers and subsequent electricity expenditure by proposing, analyzing and testing a unique idea of recycling the highest quality waste heat generated by datacenter servers. The aim was to provide a renewable and sustainable energy source for use in cooling the datacenter. The work incorporates novel approaches in waste heat usage, graphing CPU temperature, power and utilization simultaneously, and a mineral oil experimental design and implementation. The work presented investigates and illustrates the quantity and quality of heat that can be captured from a variably tasked liquid-cooled microprocessor on a datacenter server blade. It undertakes a radical approach using mineral oil. The trials examine the feasibility of using the thermal energy from a CPU to drive a cooling process. Results indicate that 123 servers encapsulated in mineral oil can power a 10-ton chiller with a design point of 50.2 kWth. Compared with water-cooling experiments, the mineral oil experiment mitigated the temperature drop between the heat source and discharge line by up to 81%. In addition, due to this reduction in temperature drop, the heat quality in the oil discharge line was up to 12.3 °C higher on average than for water-cooled experiments. Furthermore, mineral oil cooling holds the potential to eliminate the 50% cooling expenditure which initially motivated this project.
KW - Absorption chiller
KW - CPU heat, power and temperature simultaneously
KW - Data center waste heat
KW - Heat-extraction
KW - Liquid cooling
KW - Waste heat reuse
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U2 - 10.1016/j.enconman.2015.01.088
DO - 10.1016/j.enconman.2015.01.088
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84923818955
VL - 95
SP - 297
EP - 303
JO - Energy Conversion and Management
JF - Energy Conversion and Management
SN - 0196-8904
ER -
